Fr Flann Lynch, the Donegal based Capuchin priest who started the Vision ecumenical spirituality programme eighteen years ago has just published a new book, which will be translated into several languages.
Entering the Heart, is, according to Fr Lynch, “a little book about attitudes, the great signposts of life.”
It focuses mainly on the eight beatitudes and aims to help people with a strong spiritual hunger by opening up a vision for unlimited possibility and giving readers tools to transform themselves and their world.
Clare-born Fr Lynch, who lives in the Ards Capuchin monastery, holds Vision workshops in many countries and has attracted huge audiences.
“I spend a lot of my life travelling with the Vision programme, including to Korea, and I work with everyone from all backgrounds from Catholic to those with no religion,” he explained.
Fr Lynch started his Vision programme as an, “ecumenical spirituality programme” eighteen years ago and travelled to India to meet spiritual leader Dom Bede Griffiths, an English-born Benedictine monk who lived in Hindu spiritual hermitages, who became a noted yogi, and pioneered the development of the dialogue between Christianity and Hinduism.
“I went there with a view to deepening my prayer life, but I left wondering if there was a more practical experience for people than the long hours of meditation because of the way people in the west live and the lack of dedication they have,” said Fr Lynch.
While he developed his alternative spirituality programme, he said a prayer, which he now calls The Abundance Prayer, came to him and he developed this as a central theme in the Vision programme.
He subsequently introduced the programme successfully to people of all ages, races and religious backgrounds.
Fr Lynch has also developed a version of the programme for schools and has visited countless Irish schools to elaborate on it.
Fr Lynch has also developed a version of the programme for schools and has visited countless Irish schools to elaborate on it.